by Alan Hoskins
Elizabeth Seimears pitched her first shutout of the season to complete a Kansas City Kansas Community College sweep of Fort Scott Tuesday.
Seimears blanked the Greyhounds on two hits in a 5-inning 13-0 win after Leslie Ford had pitched the Lady Blue Devils to a 7-3 win in the opener.
The wins pushed KCKCC’s winning streak to six in a row heading into pivotal weekend Jayhawk Conference doubleheaders – at No. 6 ranked Cowley County (11-5) Friday and No. 9 Independence (12-6) Saturday. At 10-6 in the Jayhawk and 18-6 overall, the Blue Devils are in position to move past both teams with sweeps. Wiped out by rain Wednesday, KCKCC’s scheduled twin bill with Neosho County has not been rescheduled.
Seimears had a perfect game through four innings of the nightcap before giving up a pair of singles in the fifth. The Blue Devils backed her with 15 hits led by Mierra Morisette and Lacey Santiago. Morisette had two doubles and a triple and drove in four runs while Santiago tripled and singled twice and scored three times. Hanna Barnhart added a double and single and Ashley Henington two singles.
KCKCC scored two in the first on a single by Santiago, double by Morisette and single by Barnhart and added two more in the second on Morisette’s 2-run double following a walk and Justice Scales’ single. The Blue Devils wrapped up the win with nine runs on nine hits in the fourth as everyone in the lineup but one hit safely. Santiago and Morisette each had 2-run triples, Amanda Holroyd and Barnhart doubles and Henington, Ford, Megan Dike and Laura Vanderheiden had singles.
Leslie Ford gave up just one run the first six innings before giving up two runs on three hits in the seventh in the 7-3 opening win. Ford struck out eight and walked three while the Blue Devils did all their scoring in the first three innings.
A double by Scales and singles by Morisette and Holroyd gave KCKCC a 1-0 lead and the Blue Devils added six in the third, four of which were unearned due to two Fort Scott errors.
Scales started the uprising with a double and after a walk, hit batsman and two errors, Ford and Dike rapped singles and Vanderheiden lashed a 2-run double. Scales, Morisette, Holroyd and Vanderheiden each had a pair of hits in the win.
